Fox Pulls Gambit from Release Schedule

What on Earth is going on with Gambit? In spite of its production troubles, Channing Tatum's X-Men passion project seemed to be going full speed ahead, even setting a production start date in March. But now, Fox has pulled the film from its release schedule, slating two mystery Marvel Comics projects in its place.

Gambit was originally scheduled to be released on October 7 of this year, but now it's seemingly been postponed indefinitely, as it's been removed from the schedule and hasn't been assigned a new release date. Instead, Fox will release one Marvel project on October 6, 2017 and another on January 12, 2018. The former will be relatively free of competition so far, while the latter will go up against Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner.

This could be interpreted as either good news or bad news for the Gambit film. It could mean that Deadpool's success has given the solo X-Men project breathing room, and has made Fox less anxious to get another big-name superhero movie out right away. But considering all of the production troubles (the film still doesn't have a confirmed director, although Edge of Tomorrow's Doug Liman was rumored to be in negotiations), it's probably a sign of lack of faith in the project, and a prioritization of the Deadpool franchise. Although the other two films haven't been confirmed, it's likely that at least one of them is X-Force and/or Deadpool 2. If it's the former, then Gambit could potentially be introduced in an ensemble, which would make it easier for the character to anchor his own film.